


If Only We Were... (Normal People AU)

by inevitablewebreathe



Category: K (Anime)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, F/M, Tofu Shopgirl AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-05
Updated: 2013-02-05
Packaged: 2018-03-09 08:03:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3242306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inevitablewebreathe/pseuds/inevitablewebreathe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes the overworked waitress at the tofu shop likes to go visit the overextended bartender down the street.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Only We Were... (Normal People AU)

**Author's Note:**

> Another K kinkmeme de-anon. Unfortunately, although I had drafted some more chapters, realistically it's very unlikely that I'll go back to this one as I've got a lot of other fics that have been taking priority in the past few years and that's not likely to change. It's possible that I might be able go back long enough to fix up chapter 2 and post that as well, but even that won't be much, so honestly this fic is consigned to permanent WIP status, my apologies. I just happened to visit the meme recently and see that it was overrun by spam, so I thought I should move the story here even in its incomplete state. 
> 
> I also realize the characterization of the minor characters is a little off as this was pre-Days of Blue and we saw very little of them prior, although I've tried to correct a few small errors that I noticed, but sorry again for that.
> 
> The prompt was: "Normal people AU where Kusanagi owns a bar frequented by his parasitic high school friends and a host of weird, underage regular, and Seri is the girl working in the tofu shop down the street."

“Could you box something up for me?” Seri asked her co-worker, Akiyama, as she took off her apron and hung it on the rack.

“Sure thing,” Akiyama replied as he finished dressing up some bowls of miso soup.

“I’d like two servings of hiyayakko,” Seri said, standing before the mirror as she took the pins out of her hair, “topped with white bean paste.” She thought she saw Akiyama grimace in the background, but she dismissed it as a fluke and tousled her hair, trying to make it fall in a natural way.

“Aye-aye,” Akiyama said and grabbed one of the take out cartons, dishing up the chilled tofu and spooning bean paste onto them. 

Dōmyōji strode into the kitchen, clearly working up a temper. “If Saruhiko tells me in that stupid voice one more time that ‘the customer is always right’ then I’m—”

“Your starters,” Akiyama interrupted, pointing to the tray with the miso soup and small dishes of edamame. Akiyama had more or less taken it on himself to curtail Dōmyōji’s frequent outbursts of temper, usually by reminding him of where his money came from and the professionalism expected of employees here. Other times, a simple redirection like this was good enough and Dōmyōji seemed to drop it for the moment as he picked up the tray. Seri was just glad he was one less difficult co-worker on her plate, because the others already required more supervision than she was paid for. 

“Going out tonight?” Dōmyōji asked curiously, stopping to observe Seri primping in front of the mirror.

“Nowhere special,” Seri replied in a business-like fashion.

“Right,” Dōmyōji said sceptically and strode between the curtains out into the tofu shop front.

“I’ll just leave this here,” Akiyama said, placing the box at the edge of the counter and picking up the next slip on the counter. “Yuba on rice and seared scallops in tofu sauce,” he murmured and started preparing the next order. 

Finally satisfied with her appearance, Seri took the box that was waiting on the counter and said goodnight to the cook, grabbing her purse from the cubby area and heading out to the front till. Fushimi Saruhiko was standing there looking bored as usual, dully greeting customers as they came in. Seri thought it was a pretty poor choice on her supervisor’s part to have placed him out front, but then she generally considered her supervisor to be incompetent and entertained hopes of being promoted to his place eventually. It was unfortunate the restaurant owner wasn’t around very often, or otherwise he might be aware of the inefficiency and poor management in the Royal Blue establishment. It was a popular store, but Seri had many ideas of how to whip things into shape so that it would outsell all the other shops under the Scepter 4 chain. She just needed the opportunity.

“Hiyayakko for two,” Seri said as she dropped the box on the counter and pulled out her card.

“730 yen” Saruhiko said as he rang it up. Seri held her card up to the sensor, waiting for it to flash.

The transaction went through and Saruhiko switched the program back to the main screen. “Have fun on your date in that cess pit,” he said under his breath, but not so quietly she couldn’t hear him.

“I’ll tell him you said ‘hi’,” Seri responded with a sweet smile that was decidedly not all that sweet.

At the door she swapped out her work shoes for her favourite heels, leaving the other pair in the shop entrance for tomorrow. Standing tall, she walked out of the Royal Blue tofu shop into the lively bustle of the north end of Shizume City’s trendy Murasaki Street. Ignoring a few cat calls from random passers-by, Seri walked confidently down the block to the corner bar she liked to frequent when she needed a drink or four. HOMRA’s flashy sign stood out from all the other shops around it. Appropriate, she thought, given the flashy man who ran it.

It was a quiet night in the bar, she noticed as she opened the door. It was only Tuesday and just past 8 on top of it, with Murasaki Street’s nightlife only just picking up. She was thankful she almost never had to work the rowdy late night shifts at Royal Blue as the student part-timers tended to snap those up. The bell rang as she entered, alerting the bartender, who was caught up in conversation with another patron, to her presence.

“Welcome to HOMRA!” Izumo began before recognizing who it was, “Ah, Seri-chan! How nice of you to come.”

“I’ve told you to stop calling me that,” Seri replied as she took her place at the bar.

“Jeez, you really are the Tundra Woman, aren’t you? I thought we were friends,” he said, leaning over the bar that was his pride and joy.

“Perhaps if you dropped the abominable nicknames, I could consider it,” said Seri. 

“What cold treatment! Ah well, I guess I have to endure it,” Izumo said in a forlorn manner before perking up again. “What’ll it be today?”

“The usual,” Seri replied. Her hand clenched on the box she held briefly, before placing on top of the bar. “And, um, here,” she said, almost too quickly to be understood.

“A present! Thank you, Seri-chan~”

Ignoring the nickname, Seri continued stoically, “I thought we might share. I owe you for last time.”

“Aw, you don’t have to put it like that. A favour’s a favour, right?” Izumo said, mixing the vermouth and gin with a few scoops of red bean paste before garnishing it with a little umbrella. He slid the drink in front of her. “Nonetheless, I’ll definitely accept this,” he said with a wink. 

Seri looked down at her drink and stirred it, feeling a little flustered.

“Can I guess what it is?” Izumo asked playfully. 

“Tofu,” came a lazy voice from behind them. Seri turned to see Suoh Mikoto, one of the HOMRA regulars sitting on the couch, smoking a cigarette.

“What deductive capabilities,” Seri said under her breath. She was not fond of Suoh or any of the multitude of delinquents that frequented the bar. She had a begrudging amount of respect for the fact that he had more or less taken in a bunch of shiftless kids off the streets and given them work hawking and the like and seemed to keep them at least a little more on the straight and narrow than they were on their own, but that only extended so far. She also, if she were really pressed to admit it, found him intimidating, and she didn’t like that one bit.

Izumo just laughed off his friend’s response and cut to the chase, opening up the box. “Lessee, it is...ah,” he said, suddenly freezing. Seri raised her eyebrows inquisitively. “Aaaah, yes, thank you, it looks special,” he continued, smiling brightly. 

Seri felt satisfied with herself for choosing so well. She failed to notice Izumo’s insincerity.

“I’ll go get us some cutlery,” Izumo said politely, disappearing off into the back room.

Seri just nodded and continued sipping at her drink, quite looking forward to the snack.


End file.
